Nathan Bergey: Portland State Aerospace Society

Building Open Source, Open Hardware Rockets in Portland, Oregon.

Nathan Bergey is a volunteer rocket scientist for Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS). PSAS is a student/community run aerospace engineering group that is building ultra-low-cost, open source rockets that feature the most sophisticated avionics systems of any similar group in the world. Recently they launched a successful test of their roll control system making them one step closer to full active guidance -- the holy grail of rocket design.

Nathan will talk about how he got to be rocket scientist and why it's so cool (hint: it's rocket science). He will show off some of the amazing rockets that PSAS has flown and talk about the challenges and unexpected problems that come up when trying to get something into space.

Nathan grew up in North Carolina and studied Astronomy and Physics at Appalachian State University. He moved to Portland in 2006 and has worked as a consultant until recently when he took time off to work on rockets and other side projects full time. He is a coder, scientist, space enthusiast, and problem solver.